Europe has expressed its shock and Israel—perhaps less surprised by the stunt—has vowed revenge after one of the four coffins handed over by Hamas yesterday did not contain an Israeli hostage.
The bodies of Kfir Bibas—the youngest hostage taken by the terror group on October 7th, when he was just nine months old—and his brother Ariel have been confirmed by Israeli authorities, as well as that of 84-year-old Oded Lifschitz.
But, according to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “the Hamas monsters handed over the body of a Gazan woman instead of Shiri Bibas,” the mother of Kfir and Ariel.
They will pay the full price for violating the [ceasefire] agreement.
The padlocked coffins were paraded in front of antisemitic posters, with music blaring and adoring Palestinian crowds cheering from the sidelines.
This spectacle, and now the enduring questions over the whereabouts of Shiri Bibas, appear to have revealed to some European leaders the unique evil of Hamas terrorists.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that Shiri “must return, Hamas must release her,” while Steffen Seibert, the German ambassador to Israel, added that “on top of everything else Hamas are cruel liars.”
The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs went a step further in its remarks, describing the “grave violation of the deal” as “sick” and “twisted.”
This cruel deception shows once again [Hamas’] total disregard for human life.
And in the U.S., representative Ritchie Torres reminded Western critics of Israel:
Those who insist that Israel stop defending itself in the face of genocidal terror are asking the world’s only Jewish State to sign a suicide pact that no other nation-state, including our own, would ever sign.
The Jerusalem Post reports that Hamas is carrying out its own investigation, after admitting it might have made an ‘error,’ and will call for the return of the fourth body if it is indeed that of a Palestinian woman.
